International
Australian woman wakes to find massive python on her chest
Once freed from the python, she began casually feeding it back out the way it came in.
Credit: BBC
In the middle of the night on Monday, Rachel Bloor stirred in her bed to find a heavy weight curled up on her chest.
Half asleep, she reached out for her dog – and instead found herself petting a smooth, slithering object.
As Bloor retreated further under the covers and pulled them up to her neck, her partner switched on the bedside lamp and confirmed the Brisbane couple’s fears.
“He goes, ‘Oh baby. Don’t move. There’s like a 2.5m python on you,” Bloor told the BBC.Her first words were expletives.
The second, an order to evacuate the dogs.
“I thought if my Dalmatian realises that there’s a snake there… it’s gonna be carnage.”
The dogs secured outside the room – and her husband wishing he was with them – Bloor began carefully extricating herself.
“I was just trying to shimmy out from under the covers… in my mind, going, ‘Is this really happening? This is so bizarre’.
“She believes the carpet python – which is non-venomous – had squeezed itself through the shutters on her window onto her bed below.
Once freed from the python, she began casually feeding it back out the way it came in.
“It was that big that even though it had been curled up on me, part of its tail was still out the shutter.”
“I grabbed him, [and] even then he didn’t seem overly freaked out. He sort of just wobbled in my hand.”
It was that big that even though it had been curled up on me, part of its tail was still out the shutter.”
“I grabbed him, [and] even then he didn’t seem overly freaked out.
He sort of just wobbled in my hand.”The same couldn’t be said for her stunned husband, but Bloor herself was barely fazed, having grown up on acreage around snakes.”I think if you’re calm, they’re calm.”
All seven people on board a tourist helicopter were killed when the aircraft crashed in a remote area of northern Kenya on Wednesday morning, authorities confirmed.
The Eurocopter EC130 B4 was flying on a safari route from the Loisaba Conservancy to the Ewaso Nyiro area in Samburu County when it went down at approximately 9:13 a.m. local time near Mount Ololokwe. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said the helicopter was carrying six passengers and one pilot. Police later confirmed there were no survivors.
Five of the victims were American citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. Among those killed were José Alberto Suárez, a senior executive with Telemundo (NBCUniversal), and Michele Sensi-Contugi, director of Ecuador’s National Intelligence Center, who was travelling with his wife, Stephany Hollihan. Both she and her husband died in the crash.
The aircraft was operated by Lady Lori Helicopters and was carrying guests of the luxury safari company &Beyond. Rescue teams, including the Kenya Red Cross, faced difficult terrain and a fire at the crash site during recovery operations.
An official investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi said it is providing consular assistance to the families of the American victims.
International
Trump Annex Strait of Hormuz “New US Territory”
The development follows Trump’s recent comments that he would declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
US President Donald Trump has declared the Strait of Hormuz a “new US territory.”
Trump on Tuesday shared a map graphic on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, labelling the Strait of Hormuz a “NEW U.S. Territory”.
The same graphic was also posted by the official White House account on X.
The image shows a blue-highlighted map of the strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with a circle around the narrow passage and the words “NEW U.S. Territory” displayed prominently.
The development follows Trump’s recent comments that he would declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
Speaking at a political rally in New York State on Friday, Trump said,
“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”
International
Zambia’s Hichilema leads presidential vote count
Hichilema had 54.82% or 1,056,812 of the declared votes, figures showed, putting him on track for re-election without a second-round runoff if he keeps the overall majority.
Photo: Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema greets United Party for National Development (UPND) supporters during their election campaign launch in Lusaka, Zambia, June 28, 2026. Credit : REUTERS
Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema was well ahead in counting for national elections on Sunday with nearly half the constituencies declared, the electoral commission said.
Reuters reported that Hichilema had 54.82% or 1,056,812 of the declared votes, figures showed, putting him on track for re-election without a second-round runoff if he keeps the overall majority.
His main challenger, Brian Mundubile, was in second place with 43% or 830,841 of the declared votes, with 105 out of 226 constituencies announced by around 1500 GMT.
The presidential vote — held alongside parliamentary and local elections on Thursday — is seen as a test of whether Hichilema’s economic gains since a pandemic-era debt crisis are enough to win him a second term in Africa’s second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia temporarily halted vote counting on Friday, citing violence against officials and the theft of ballot papers.
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